President Obama is expected to announce the assigning of up to 3,000 military personnel to combat the Ebola virus in West Africa, reports Fox News.
Obama will announce the plan in an appearance at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
Sources told Fox News on Monday that the request is expected to be discussed Tuesday at the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey.
UPDATE:
"Any non-indigenous military use must be carefully considered, weighing the tremendous professional skills and experience combat medics could bring to the epidemic fight against potential blowback from conspiracy-mongers and Islamists," writes CFR's Laurie Garrett for Foreign Policy.
Great: fighting it in West Africa. Importing it into the United States.
ReplyDeletemilitary vs ebola? Really? By all means, send thousands of Americans there. Shuttle them back and forth all day.
ReplyDeleteThis will end well, I'm sure.
Note the CFR mouthpiece's lazy and lame conflation of conspiracy "mongers" with Islamists. Look for this to intensify as the interventionist follies intensify.
ReplyDeleteShows how little the threat is of ISIS. Obama sends 500 advisers to fight ISIS. 3000 to fight Ebola.
ReplyDeleteSure it might be primarily a medical base but nothing says other things could happen there too.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the number of dead is tiny compared to other diseases, the virulence and mortality rate coupled with what appears to be a 3 week doubling of infections makes it scary.
ReplyDeleteLike, seriously scary.
If it reached India or China, or spread in any major city, the consequences could be apocalyptic.
Yeah?.. and AIDS at one time was said to be a major pandemic.
Delete45 million people a year die worldwide in auto accidents, and another 50 million are injured.
I can’t get excited about Ebola… not yet anyway.
I'm sorry, but comparing AIDS (a radically different disease) or even Swine or Bird flu to Ebola is asinine. Although the death rate for this breakout is small, currently, the infective nature and an end game that leaves billions of viruses in blood, feces, sweat, urine, and saliva, coupled with a 21 day doubling period for new infections AND a 21 day window between infection and symptoms, well that is bad news.
DeleteNow, a slum that has people that interact with every level of society in their menial jobs while thousands of people are dying of Ebola inside those slums is a recipe for apocalyptic scenarios, even if they are only a small probability. You have to weigh how bad it could get with how likely and how prepared you want to be. It's a trade off. As of this point, it will be a long time before I'm in a major city (I miss NYC so bad it hurts) let alone overseas.
I was in Mumbai 2 years ago, and was shocked at the sight. Imagine if Ebola got loose in that (or any other Indian slum) area, like one where they bathe daily in the Ganges with the bodies of dead relatives.
How many "small" outbreaks in London, or Rome, or Minneapolis does it take for people to panic?